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Cannabis is big business. More and more states are passing medical use laws and the recreation-al cannabis market just isn’t far behind. Medical use is principally centered on cannabidiol (CBD) extracts while extracts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) have led the recreational market’s development of everything from oils for vaping to edible candy.

The key to all products, however, is the extraction stage. Use of advanced chemical methods and high-tech industrial machinery has allowed cannabis producers to experiment with new approaches. These state-of-the-art methods have led to new forms of cannabis extracts resembling vape oils, oral tinctures, crumbles, and wax concentrates.

The three most used extraction methods by the cannabis trade are alcohol extraction, hydrocarbon extraction, and supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2) extraction. As with most things in life, there are pros and cons for every of these methods.

Alcohol extraction makes use of ethanol and may be performed cold, hot, or at room temperature. It remains one of the most efficient extraction methods. Nonetheless, the recent ethanol typically extracts undesirable chlorophyll and plant waxes and requires clarification or correction steps. The cold process reduces these contaminants at the worth of longer extraction times. Room temperature ethanol extraction splits these differences.

Hydrocarbon extraction makes use of butane or propane, solvents with a lot decrease boiling factors than ethanol. These solvents extract more of the plant terpenes, which provide more taste and aroma and are subsequently higher for vape oils or oral tinctures. Nonetheless, like the alcohol methodology, scaling as much as massive batches is troublesome and presents significant safety hazards.

CO2 extraction necessitates expensive, high tech specialised pressure and temperature control equipment to deal with turning gaseous CO2 into a supercritical fluid or cryogen. The liquid CO2, with careful management, simply extracts oils and waxes and in some uses requires little to no publish-processing. The CO2 extraction process is highly tunable, allowing totally different pressures and temperatures to extract unique botanical compounds.

Safety considerations

Following the discussion above, it is obvious that of the three predominant extraction strategies involve use of extraordinarily flammable solvents. The third includes the usage of a cryogen with its own particular safety concerns. Due to this fact, cannabis extraction, particularly at production scale, entails some significant safety issues.

First, identify all hazards. This begins by building a chemical stock or list of chemical compounds with related essential information corresponding to materials owner, date acquired, amount on hand, storage location, and accompanying safety data sheet (SDS).

SDSs are the second critical part and comprise 16 particular sections detailing information on the chemical’s constituents, physical properties, health hazards, first aid measures, personal protective equipment, and special dealing with and disposal requirements.2 The SDS comprises all of the information needed to develop your HCP and is critical if an exposure or incident occurs. Guarantee access to the SDS is available within a few minutes at all times (e.g. 24/7).

Train staff

After identifying hazards and building stock of hazardous chemical compounds, conduct the communication part of the program. This means getting the critical information to employees (e.g. training our workers on the hazards of every chemical).

In addition to the hazards, workers should receive training on the potential publicity routes, signs, and signs of exposure and chemical warning properties (or lack thereof). Training also needs to embrace any personal protective equipment vital for using the chemical as well as incident response, mitigation steps, and first aid measures.

Preventive and proactive health and safety is essential—this means the timing of training matters. All workers should receive training previous to beginning any work with hazardous chemicals. Annual refresher training is highly recommended. Conduct a thorough assessment and re-training after any shut-call or incident.

Evaluate exposures

Industrial hygienists are trained to anticipate, recognize, consider, and control all potential health and safety hazards within the workplace. Knowing that many chemical solvents pose significant risk for publicity and health penalties, we should admit that exposure assessments are necessary.

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